Boxed In
by abcreedfan
Summary: Luka and Abby deal with the possibility that Joe may be autistic. AU S14. Please RR. Be nice : In progress. CHAPTER 5 NOW UP! Took so long becuase my computer crashed... Please rr.
1. Fearful Concept

Boxed In

Title: Boxed In

Summary: AU Season 14. Abby and Luka deal with the realization that their son may be autistic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Luka, Abby, Joe, or anyone else whose name looks familiar. If it's not familiar, I may own the character.

"Joseph!" Abby Lockhart called after her son again in frustration as he zipped away from her at breakneck speed and started digging through a desk drawer, screaming with amusement and halfway dancing with some items he'd pulled out of it. Rushing over to scoop the 22-month old child from the place she carried him out of the room, resulting in an ear-piercing shriek from the toddler, but no real tears. "Aiyuuuu!" "Joe, I don't understand you…" Abby said with a frown as she closed the door, placing him on the floor and kneeling to his eye level. "Try again…" She sighed in frustration. Joe had been an early talker, babbling a mile a minute and picking up several new words a week since he was just 14 months old. Now, for about the past two or three months, increasingly more often than not, he had reverted back to screaming and babbling nonsense when he was excited or upset, and not saying much at all when he was calm.

"Joe…" She looked at him and frowned a little as she noticed him squirm, turning his head to avert his eyes from her own, making jerky movements to escape. The lack of coordination she could have easily chalked up to a minor neuro-reflexive delay from being premature. He'd outgrow it by the time he was 5 or 6 or so. But the eyes… he made such an effort to avert his eyes from her own. Those big brown eyes just two months ago had been so deep, so observing and soulful. Her eyes. Now, they were like two empty brown saucers. The eyes were what terrified her the most.

She was a doctor, for goodness sake! She knew the signs and it scared her to death. She knew though. She knew she'd talk to Luka about an evaluation, just as soon as he got home from work. She knew they'd go through the motions; doctors, testing, long scientific discussions. Statistics and prognoses. She knew, deep down she knew, what she feared so much would come. The day they told her that her fears were founded.

She wanted to scoop him up and run. Just run away. Somewhere where she wouldn't have to voice her concerns to Luka. Somewhere were countless doctors and specialists would test and examine and scan her child. Her baby boy. Her only baby. The well meaning acquaintances who would shake their heads and sigh that it was such a shame. She wanted to scoop him up in her arms and run far, far away. To a place where it wouldn't matter. Where she could protect him from all of it.

But she couldn't run. She didn't even really have the answers yet. He needed the appropriate help he deserved, if it was warranted at all. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to stop the bit of panic that had taken over and simply lifted him up again, speaking softly and reassuringly to him as she carried him into his room for a nap.

She'd talk to Luka later.


	2. The Talk

Boxed In

Title: Boxed In pt 2

Summary: AU Season 14. Abby and Luka deal with the realization that their son may be autistic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Luka, Abby, Joe, or anyone else whose name looks familiar. If it's not familiar, I may own the character.

Luka came in from work, removing his coat and moving to sit next to Abby on the couch. Usually coming in at this time he would have found her savoring a rare opportunity to watch a TV movie while Joe slept before he came home. Today she was sitting there staring into space, the TV off, wearing sweatpants, one of his black tshirts, and that stripped sweater she seemed to wear when she was feeling nervous, frightened, or stressed.

"Abby?" He slipped onto the couch next to her. She practically jumped up from her seat as she turned toward him, startled. "l-Luka, I didn't hear you come in." "I'm sorry…" "No, no.. I guess I just was thinking." Luka nodded slowly. "Is something wrong?" She shook her head. "No. Nothing's.. wrong.. well not really… we need to talk." Luka blinked, brows rose as he nodded slowly. "Okay, so.. what is it?"

"I… well. I don't really know how to say this but you probably already know I mean why wouldn't you I already saw it and you have wa—" She rambled off as she tended to do when she was really afraid of what she was about to say and his reaction to it. "Abby.. Stop. Just stop. Tell me what is on your mind." He interrupted her and spoke calmly to her, reaching to take her hands in his own and looked into her eyes lovingly. "Just tell me. Whatever it is, we can handle it." But he couldn't be prepared for what she was about to say. Even if she was right, he had seen it.

"I think … I think Joe may be autistic." Finally she just blurted it out, and Luka's expression shifted to one of shock and concern. "He's losing vocabulary… and he doesn't make eye contact. And he has jerky movements. I thought it was a coordination thing from being mature but he is walking funny now and he just seems like he might.. be.. autistic…" Now she was slowing down from rambling again, her voice breaking, her eyes on the verge of tears as she looked up into Luka's eyes to search for the same fear, pain, anxiety, that she was feeling.

She saw it. She saw all that and more. She saw concern. She saw love. For her and for their son. Finally, he spoke after a long pause.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. I think you're right. I think we should have him evaluated. We'll make an appointment in the morning."

Abby nodded, and leaned against him, closing her eyes and finally let a tear stream down.


	3. Living a Nightmare

Boxed In

Title: Boxed In pt 2

Summary: AU Season 14. Abby and Luka deal with the realization that their son may be autistic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Luka, Abby, Joe, or anyone else whose name looks familiar. If it's not familiar, I may own the character.

She wasn't sure at first why he hadn't said more. He seemed so concerned and yet so distant. But that was how he was sometimes, holding it all in, letting his emotions settle into something tangible to words before he ever even tried to share them with her. So she had let him be and headed to bed.

She passed by her son's room and slipped in to check on him, the room glowing with pale-colored light through the _Cars_ nightlight. He slept so soundly. He slept well, from a young age. She remembered even telling Curtis Ames that, the night he'd held her and Joe hostage here while waiting for Luka. He had nearly always slept well. So unusual for preemies.

She sat down in the rocking chair that was only a couple of feet from his crib and just watched him sleep. He looked so peaceful, so beautiful. So normal. Maybe he was normal. Maybe he was going through a phase. Maybe he was just one of those boys who slowed down for a bit at this age. Then it lit up in her mind like a billboard of dreaded reminder. HE WAS LOSING SKILLS. Not just slowing down. She exhaled a deep, long sigh, and leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes and wrapped the button sweater around herself. She felt a tear trickle down her face, and knew that if she stayed there, kept watching him and entertaining these thoughts… She'd spend the entire night sitting there crying over something that didn't even have a definite yes or no yet. Luka would be in here, hovering over her, worried, tense, probably not speaking except to repeatedly ask her every five minutes or so if she was _sure_ she was alright.

She wasn't. She wasn't alright at all. But she couldn't spend this night like that. No, somehow she had to force herself to get up and go into her and Luka's room and sleep. To be rested so she could fully be there for both her husband and her son tomorrow. Tomorrow and all the days and weeks of tormenting uncertainty and anxiety that were sure to follow.

She still wanted to run. The tendency all her life to just run. To leave Maggie to Eric as soon as she was med-compliant for the umpteenth time. To marry a man she didn't truly love to escape the endless cycle of her mother at just 19 years old. To drink herself into a stupor when her marriage and her mother brought her to her knees. To have an abortion when she found out she was carrying that man's child. And finally to just leave, get a divorce, without ever telling him about the child.

Once she had run away from Luka. Pushing him away until finally her caved to the trap she had set for them both. Pushing him away until finally he'd gone. And now here they were. Together. Facing the biggest obstacle they had come across in their lives together.

And she wouldn't run.


	4. Freefall

Boxed In

Title: Boxed In pt 4

Summary: AU Season 14. Abby and Luka deal with the realization that their son may be autistic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Luka, Abby, Joe, or anyone else whose name looks familiar. If it's not familiar, I may own the character.

He lay awake staring at the ceiling. An exhaled sigh was given as he turned his head to look at her. She was lying on her side, her back to him, the blanket covering her body and he could see a shoulder in a strap-sleeved shirt poking out, partially hidden by some loose brown strands that fell over her pillow. And yet she wasn't asleep. He knew it, and she knew he knew it, but he also knew not to let on that he knew that she knew that he knew she was awake. The whole game was confusing in the least. But he'd play along. The past eight years had taught him to play along.

He knew why she was awake. The same reason he was. She was thinking about Joe. About the possible outcome that would lie before them like a ticking time bomb. There was nothing they could do but move forward, prepared to face it head-on.

At least, he wanted to be prepared, when the time came. Right now he was screaming inside, frightened and feeling isolated, cursed, hopeless. More hopeless than he had felt in a very long time.

He got up, finally knowing Abby was not going to give in tonight, let him know it was okay to acknowledge that she was awake. So he slipped quietly out of the bed and left the room, letting the door close partially behind him.

Walking out to the kitchen, he sat at the table and sighed, starting to look over some medical journals hoping to find something to distract himself with, but he couldn't get any interest in any of it right now, so big was the dark cloud that seemed to loom over their future.

So, he got up and walked out to the living room, sat down on the couch, turned on the TV and started channel-flipping. Boxing. Infomercial. News in Spanish. Infomercial. Talk show rerun. Football. Infomercial. Dating line commercial. He sighed and turned off the TV, getting up he put on his jacket and walked outside into the cool spring night.

He wasn't sure how long or how far he walked. All he knew was that the sky had gone from the pitchest black it had taken that night to a dull gray-blue that signaled the approaching daylight. This is when he found himself suddenly sitting on the bench at the edge of the park, just four or five blocks from home. Funny, he didn't recall how he got there or where he'd been.

It was then that he felt a tear on his skin and wiped it away. This is when he realized he had been praying. Pleading with God, not for the first time, to spare his son.


	5. Finding

Boxed In

Title: Boxed In pt 5

Summary: AU Season 14. Abby and Luka deal with the realization that their son may be autistic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Luka, Abby, Joe, or anyone else whose name looks familiar. If it's not familiar, I may own the character. I'm sorry this chapter was so long in coming. My computer crashed (

Abby sat next to Luka, Joe on her lap, in the waiting room of Dr. Jasmine Goldman, a developmental pediatrician and neurologist. Dr. Goldman worked at County, but they were in her office in another neighborhood today, not wanting to have people at County know yet that they were even seeing her yet. Not until it was for sure. Gossip spread in that ER like wildfire, and they had no interest in dealing with it where Joe was concerned.

Joe was looking around the room with wide eyes, but a blank stare, Abby had to admit. "Joe…" She tried to get his attention. He turned his head but didn't look at her, and almost as quickly went back to what he'd been doing before. She sighed. She couldn't even really say for sure that he had been reacting to her voice, or even his name. She glanced over when she felt Luka watching them, and her eyes met his. She knew he saw her fear, her anxiety, for she saw the same thing in his eyes.

"Joseph Kovack…" the receptionist butchered the name and Abby even cringed now at the sound, as she stood, still holding Joe. "Ummm Kovac…" she corrected softly and then walked over to the desk, followed by Luka. "You filled out the forms… go wait in room 2 and the doctor will be with you shortly…" the receptionist, a no-nonsense, 50-something year old woman with graying brown hair in a bun and glasses pointed down the hall at the first door on the left.

Nodding, Abby shifted Joe's weight in her arms and walked with him into the indicated room, followed closely by Luka. She sat down, Joe on her lap, and turned him to face her. "It's alright sweetie… this doctor is going to help us find out if you need some help, okay?" But as usual, Joe wasn't really listening to her, too busy shifting his gaze all around the place, his eyes roaming over his new surroundings, but clearly not processing them very openly in his mind. He said nothing, he barely gave the slightest indication that he was even aware he was in this room with them, but Abby knew he was taking it all in. Being a doctor, she knew that even the most severely autistic individual usually had an average or above-average intelligence, and that he was most certainly taking it all in, just keeping it to himself.

She turned her attention now to Luka. He was standing, leaning back against the wall, staring to the side wall as if there was a window there. His whole body was tensed and she could tell he was anxious about this appointment, just as she was. "You okay?" Her voice broke his reverie and he turned towards her, almost startled, like he'd forgotten just where they were and that she was there with him. "Yeah. I'm fine." He spoke softly, in that tone that let her know somehow he really wasn't, almost like right before Joe was born, after the hospital had been attacked and he had been nearly killed by one of the fugitives that had taken Sam and her 13-year-old son, Alex, hostage.

"You know whatever happens today, doesn't change how it would have been, Luka…" "I know." He responded quickly, distantly. She heard her own words and had to almost want to take them back. Stating the obvious, the obvious that scared the crap out of her, how could she expect anything more from him. They each dealt with this in their own way. She dealt with it with a thin wall of denial, acting like everything was just right with Joe until someone gave her a medical explanation otherwise. He dealt with it by silently brooding while they waited for each painstaking step to this terrifying process. She knew that by now about him. He had always been this way, and she knew it was best to just let him be.

Just then the door opened and the doctor stepped in. "Dr. Kovac, Dr. Lockhart… I'm Dr. Goldman, I'll be the one evaluating Joseph…"


End file.
